A coalition of large employers is expected to announce today that it is hiring the Children's Hospital Informatics Program to take over development and operation of a project to provide, store and update Web-based health records for millions of U.S. employees and their dependents, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The announcement comes after the coalition had problems with the group it originally selected to develop the software for the projects, called Dossia Network (McWilliams, Wall Street Journal, 9/17).
A source familiar with the situation told InformationWeek in July that there had been trouble for months. The source said that Omnimedix, the company hired to build the system, was seeking payment for "deliverables" it had failed to provide and that the coalition was asking for a refund (iHealthBeat, 7/12).
The coalition in June filed a restraining order to prevent Omnimedix from filing a public lawsuit against the coalition. The judge's ruling in favor of the coalition means that if Omnimedix decides later to file a lawsuit against the coalition, the case would be sealed and details of the dispute would be kept private, Donna Lee -- judicial clerk for Judge Edward Jones in Oregon, who ruled on the case -- said (iHealthBeat, 7/20).
On Monday, the employer coalition also is expected to announce that AT&T and drug maker Sanofi-Aventis have joined the Dossia project. The other employers participating in the electronic health record project are:
- Applied Materials;
- British Petroleum;
- Cardinal Health;
- Intel;
- Pitney Bowes; and
- Wal-Mart.
Later this year, the employers plan to start testing the EHR software with employees, the
Journal reports.
The coalition hopes the Web-based EHRs will reduce costs and help employees and their families take on a bigger role in managing their health care. The group plans to require hospitals, physicians and pharmacies to use Dossia to update employees' health records to maintain their preferred provider status (
Wall Street Journal, 9/17).